BOSTON — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was in the building, but the MVP chants were not for him.
They rained down from the TD Garden rafters each time Celtics forward Jaylen Brown took the free-throw line in a 119-109 win over Gilgeous-Alexander’s reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder. He took the stripe a lot — a game-high 14 times in total — en route to 31 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists, outperforming the NBA’s returning regular-season and Finals MVP.
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Brown even beat Gilgeous-Alexander at his own game, baiting him into a foul — and the bucket — midway through the fourth quarter. Brown was all smiles; all SGA could do was shake his head. He has, after all, made a nice living out of forcing opponents into compromising positions.
“I guess that was a little payback,” said Brown.
Of course, Brown has a Finals MVP award of his own. He also made an All-NBA Second Team as Jayson Tatum’s co-star in 2023. We knew he was good. Just didn’t know he was this good. In the absence of Tatum, who ruptured his right Achilles last May, Brown kept the Celtics in the hunt, performing at a level that warrants his consideration on ballots for MVP and All-NBA First Team.
“We all knew he could do it,” said Tatum.
Not like this. We figured him for a second option on a title team, because we have seen him do it before in 2024, but after Wednesday’s convincing win over the Thunder we have to ask: Can Jaylen Brown be the best player on a team that wins the championship this season?
Tatum is back in remarkable time from surgery, but he is not in his All-NBA First Team form, and that is OK. It’s actually a good thing, because now the Celtics know a new pecking order. It just looks different from what we’re used to seeing. Brown is their No. 1 option. Tatum is the co-star.
And he looked the part against the Thunder, totaling 19 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 steals over 35 minutes of this battle between the league’s last two champions. As he has since his return, Tatum looked a lot like himself, only with a little less bounce and a lot more rust.
“I didn’t lose any of my game,” the superstar declared after only his ninth game back. The Celtics are 7-2 with him. ”I’m just kind of rusty right now and finding my wind and my rhythm.”
He is only getting stronger, and there are more than two months before these two teams could meet again in the NBA Finals. The Celtics must be thinking that way, or else they may not have brought Tatum back, as the Eastern Conference is up for grabs. The Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers will not scare Boston, especially not if these Thunder couldn’t.
“That was a great, encouraging game for JT,” Brown said of Wednesday’s effort. “They’re a high-level intensity, physical team, and I felt like it was a step in the right direction. We’re still encouraging him to get back to that level of aggression we know and are used to, but tonight was a great game of him making the right plays, the right reads and being Jayson Tatum.”
That’s right: The Brown-Tatum duo, which has yielded five trips to the Eastern Conference finals and a pair of NBA Finals appearances in eight seasons, is morphing into a new form. It may still be the best tandem in the NBA if Wednesday’s performance against OKC was any indication.
“Obviously, there are still going to be some ups and downs,” Brown said of their partnership. “We’re still working some kinks out, getting our flow. We’ve got 10 games left, and we need each one of those to get ready for the playoffs, but I think today was a very huge step for us.”
How huge?
“We can compete with anybody in the NBA,” said Boston’s Baylor Scheierman.
Scheierman is one of the Celtics who stepped up in Tatum’s absence, along with Hugo Gonzalez and Jordan Walsh, among others. And now those guys are ready to contribute, too. Scheierman scored 11 points off the bench against the Thunder and looked like he belonged.
What was so striking against Oklahoma City: Boston was every bit as deep. The Thunder come at teams in waves, rolling out role player after role player who could start for most other teams. Now, with Tatum making them a complete roster, the Celtics likewise have no end to a rotation.
“This team has just been awesome all year,” said Brown. “It’s been a very fun season. Our guys have really developed from trying to find their footing in this league, trying to find a rhythm, trying to find their confidence, to really competing against some of the best teams in the league.”
More concerning for the Thunder is the health of Jalen Williams, who scored seven points on nine shots and was a nonfactor in the loss to Boston. He recently made his second return from a hamstring strain, and he missed the first 19 games of the season to wrist surgery. He has played only 27 games. That Tatum looks every bit as healthy as Williams at this point is surprising.
All of a sudden, we might have to recalibrate who we consider the NBA’s best pairing heading into the playoffs. The Celtics, for their part, are eager to see how far Tatum can help take Brown.
“It’s super exciting,” said Scheierman. “We’ve just taken it a day at a time, not really knowing what to expect throughout the course of the season, but now that we have him back and integrated into our team, which has been an easy transition for us, it’s super exciting for what’s to come. We’re super excited and super confident in what we can do moving forward.”
This isn’t to say the Celtics are favorites from one win against the Thunder. Nor was the TD Garden crowd saying that Brown is the actual MVP over Gilgeous-Alexander. He can be on a given night, though, and if he can do it four times in seven tries, he might be a champion again.
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